ViacomCBS Selling Simon & Schuster

[David cgc]

I remember at one point an author (possibly @Greg Cox) said most tie-in fiction was read by roughly two percent of a shows viewers. Does the CANON!!! banner that seems to be everywhere right now and attached to everything, actually appreciably increase book/comic sales?

I'm actually quite curious about how that relationship has changed because of the other half of the ratio; 1% of the audience of TNG reading Trek novels when it was on over-the-air TV in the 1990s, if any decent fraction of them stuck with prose Trek (you know, us), that actually mean that, in addition to the casual readers brought in because there's a new show out, with the much tighter reach of a streaming show, the proportion of readers to viewers has gone up. (Or, different pathway to the same result, since the audience has to seek out CBSAA to watch Trek, it's mostly made of the Trek die-hards who are most likely to get secondary materials like novels, comics, video games, and so on. My rough estimates for Discovery's first season suggested that the number of viewers was probably a bit less than Enterprise's final season, which might be leading the Trek tie-in lines in a direction more like the video game tie-ins mentioned earlier, where a lot of the value to the reader is that they are relatively tightly integrated with the source works). Of course, book publishing in general doesn't give out hard numbers the way TV does (nor does streaming, for that matter, but they'll drop an order-of-magnitude figure in an interview now and then), so I genuinely don't know how many people read books at all as a matter of course, never mind Star Trek novels.

In short, situation normal. Everybody relax, and breathe regular.

Aw, Dayton, we actually know how you'd know what's going on, it makes taking sides and reading between everyone's lines so much less fun!

I thought “Space Vixens” was code for Star Fox. Nevermind.

As someone who, if I may say so myself, has gotten pretty good at recognizing all the different ways the various authors involved with Trek drop hints and let things slip about unannounced future projects, that'd be pretty on-the-nose. Like, if someone was going to be that obvious, they'd just straight-up say it.

Besides, he's clearly talking about Firefly. It's always Firefly.

(That's not entirely a joke guess, the Firefly/Serenity tie-in strategy has been really, really weird, and I'd absolutely believe that Fox or Universal wanted to have an option for two parallel novel lines for some unfathomable reason.)

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

Sometimes it’s easier to just be on the nose.

 

[JJMiller]

It is the case that hardcover Star Wars novels are coming out in parallel now from Disney Lucasfilm Press and Del Rey — Disney's are YA, although in modern bookselling that distinction is more one of commerce. (Lost Stars is 550 pages, and while at a smaller trim size I expect it's as long as any adult novel.)

The "High Republic" setting announced last week will have an adult novel from Del Rey, a YA novel from Disney LFL, a middle-grade novel from Disney LFL, an adult comics series from Marvel, and a kids' comics series from IDW. As you might note, there, that's a mix of brands within the company itself and outside firms — including the one it's been working with for decades.

Back in the day, my reporters would come back from the licensing shows with so much material we could've filled a dozen magazines; the brands have only gotten more sophisticated with synergies since then. My point is that — without speculating in any way on this particular license — there are a lot of different configurations out there for brands to choose from, and that many of them do include legacy partners in very significant roles.

 

[Greg Cox]

As someone who, if I may say so myself, has gotten pretty good at recognizing all the different ways the various authors involved with Trek drop hints and let things slip about unannounced future projects, that'd be pretty on-the-nose. Like, if someone was going to be that obvious, they'd just straight-up say it.

I swear to God, I had no idea that "Star Fox" was a game. The only Starfox I know is the relatively obscure Marvel superhero.

My experience with computer gaming pretty much ends with Solitaire and Hearts.

 

[Christopher]

Pulled a similar stunt with the AVENGERS remake... I reprinted a cool old novel based on the original TV series. (Written by Trek's own John Peel).

If only he'd had a co-author named Emma Steed...

 

[JD]

I swear to God, I had no idea that "Star Fox" was a game. The only Starfox I know is the relatively obscure Marvel superhero.

My experience with computer gaming pretty much ends with Solitaire and Hearts.

It's a space fighter combat game series where the characters are all anthropomorphic animals.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

It's a space fighter combat game series where the characters are all anthropomorphic animals.

It also has a very passionate Furries fan base, so the people behind the Star Trek novels doing Star Fox novels makes sense to me.

More market research for @Greg Cox on this exciting new licensing opportunity: https://www.facebook.com/SpeedFoxCl/

I actually guarantee you a Star Fox romance novella will sell more than all of this year’s Star Trek novels combined. It would legitimately do gang busters.

 

[Damian]

I didn’t say that. I would have no idea either way.

What I do know is another publisher is doing books like the ones written by the writers in this thread. It could be a couple years away.

I don’t think there are going to be exclusive merchandisers going forward. Perhaps different types of books and toys and collectibles, but no category exclusivity. That’s how all Nickelodeon managed brands work, including the ones I work with.

So say hypothetically, Untitled Nickelodeon Animated Series will have action figures from COMPANY A targeting smaller kids and sold at Walmart, and from COMPANY B targeting older collector-types and sold at comic book stores.

Well, I don't know. What I do know is S&S has an exclusive agreement right now to release novels based on the various live action Star Trek series. You said at the beginning of the thread that with the sale of S&S that they would no longer have that exclusive agreement. Admittedly I don't know all the ins and outs of contracts, but that would indicate voiding the contract. If you have an exclusive contract and then Viacom says never mind, they are voiding the contract.

Now if you're simply talking about when the current contract with S&S is over, whenever that is, well, that would be the case regardless. Viacom can resign the contract, sign with someone else or not do exclusive agreements at all I suppose, though I have to think there are benefits to have exclusive agreements with various publishers, esp. if they want to maintain some control over the franchise. It's a lot easier to do if you know who does what then having some free for all.

 

[David cgc]

It also has a very passionate Furries fan base, so the people behind the Star Trek novels doing Star Fox novels makes sense to me.

That strikes me as an odd connection to make. I know the furry meta-fandom crosses all demographics and walks of life, but I never thought of it as being satistically over-represented (or represented at all, not that I’ve been on the lookout) in the current stable of Trek novelists.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

That strikes me as an odd connection to make.

Not really. @JJMiller is credited for originating this insanely popular interspecies relationship:

I feel he could easily write about the passions and betrayals of the Star Fox characters. They’re like Star Trek meets anime drama meets furry culture.

 

[The Wormhole]

It seems to be stretching things quite a bit to say being the mastermind behind Hera and Kanan's relationship somehow equates with being passionate about Furries.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

It seems to be stretching things quite a bit to say being the mastermind behind Hera and Kanan's relationship somehow equates with being passionate about Furries.

I did not say anything close to that.

 

[TheAlmanac]

Besides, he's clearly talking about Firefly. It's always Firefly.

(That's not entirely a joke guess, the Firefly/Serenity tie-in strategy has been really, really weird, and I'd absolutely believe that Fox or Universal wanted to have an option for two parallel novel lines for some unfathomable reason.)

For a long time, Firefly and Serenity were in a situation somewhat similar to the Superman/Superboy scenario described earlier, with Fox having the former (and not seeming too interested in merchandise or tie-ins) and Universal having the latter (and seeming much more interested). There could've hypothetically been two novel lines at that point, but the Serenity licence was restricted to the movie (despite having the same main characters), so the only photo references used were from the movie and new stories were set after the series (and eventually after the movie) except for the occasional flashbacks. There were Serenity comics from Dark Horse, and a Serenity RPG, but no Serenity novels (which would've been from Simon & Schuster like the film novelisation, just to keep this vaguely on-topic ).

At some point, those rights to Serenity ended up with Fox and they became more interested in licencing, because merchandise started switching over to Firefly branding (with a 20th Century Fox copyright notice) while also including visual references from both the series and movie. There ended up being an entirely separate Firefly RPG (albeit from the same game company), and there are now separate Firefly comics (from a different publisher than the Serenity comics) and a line of Firefly novels.

 

[Sci]

Instead of critiquing me, people should focus on themselves and their professional relationships. I’d be downright embarrassed and somewhat angry if I didn’t know something as substantial as Star Trek merchandise moving under Nickelodeon’s watch, and the first I had heard about it was on a forum by a random poster, about 6 weeks after it already happened.

On the other hand, you've just outlined an excellent reason to trust actual, publicly-known licensing and creative consultants like Dayton Ward and David Mack over yourself on this topic.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

That's not entirely a joke guess, the Firefly/Serenity tie-in strategy has been really, really weird, and I'd absolutely believe that Fox or Universal wanted to have an option for two parallel novel lines for some unfathomable reason.

There's a story Jim Shooter tells about the days when he was Marvel's Editor in Chief. He had to veto a licensing deal where the licensing department wanted to offer Amazing Spider-Man and Spectacular Spider-Man as two completely different properties to licensees.

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

On the other hand, you've just outlined an excellent reason to trust actual, publicly-known licensing and creative consultants like Dayton Ward and David Mack over yourself on this topic.

One would hope so. Yet...

 

[The Wormhole]

I did not say anything close to that.

Sure sounds like it to me. After commenting on Star Fox's passionate Furry fanbase, you then jumped to the conclusion Star Trek novel writers would be a natural fit for writing Star Fox novels here:

It also has a very passionate Furries fan base, so the people behind the Star Trek novels doing Star Fox novels makes sense to me.

After which David cgc said he considered that a weird connection to make here:

That strikes me as an odd connection to make.

You then quoted that message, noting that JJMiller, believed to be the originator of the relationship between the characters Hera Syndullah and Kanan Jarrus on Star Wars Rebels would be a natural to write a Star Fox novel, which you describe as "Star Trek meets Furries" here:

Not really. @JJMiller is credited for originating this insanely popular interspecies relationship:

I feel he could easily write about the passions and betrayals of the Star Fox characters. They’re like Star Trek meets anime drama meets furry culture.

From this I draw the conclusion that you are saying that essentially being the matchmaker for those two characters is somehow equated as being into "Furry culture" as you word it. Am I the only one drawing this conclusion?

 

[CaptainXaviOfEarth]

I think he would be top of any publishers list to write such stories, for that reason, yes. He’s an ally for that entire world, and yes, there are similarities.

But why I think Star Trek writers would be good Star Fox writers isn’t because they understand furry culture. It was because there are similarities to how it has a passionate fanbase that eats up that world, and it has similarities to Star Trek TOS with a little Rebel Alliance in there.

I should have worded my point better.

The initial humour aside, I’d buy a @JJMiller Star Fox novel. I think that world is more interesting than most other science fiction worlds.

 

[JJMiller]

I seem to have lost the thread of this discussion a bit, but always happy to hear kind words.

(And to clarify, the originators of that relationship were the creators of the TV show; they let me write the first chapter, so to speak.)

 

[BillJ]

Instead of critiquing me, people should focus on themselves and their professional relationships. I’d be downright embarrassed and somewhat angry if I didn’t know something as substantial as Star Trek merchandise moving under Nickelodeon’s watch, and the first I had heard about it was on a forum by a random poster, about 6 weeks after it already happened.

Or the simple fact of the matter is for a lot of these folks, Star Trek is one of many irons they have in the fire.